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Kind of. The blades (as in the persona like beings) cause actual weapons to manifest in their driver's hands. Weapon attacks are based on the weapon type and the wielder's skills for that weapon type but elemental properties are based on the blade who also adds their own passive effects and buffs and special attack to the mix.

I don't have Xenoblade yet either, but I sent this comic to a couple of my friends and asked them how much truth there is in this comic.

The response I got was that it's "not much."

I guess there's just a weapon affinity gauge that builds as you use a weapon.

It's complicated like most systems in the game.

Truthfully, opening up a core for a new blade is only a small part of the game. A good chunk of the unique blades are added to your roster as part of the story and only a small portion of the potential pool have unique designs and skill sets. The vast majority will be a generic style robot dude/lady/animal with randomly generated skills, element, and weapon type.

It's more about how you utilize the blades as opposed to collecting them.

Building up affinity and building up trust are separate systems. The former is basically just a super meter that resets each fight and lets you use the super powered version of a blade's special attack. It's a function of time in battle and not getting too far away from your blade (which can be tough in fights with knockback effects or when you need to prioritize a target that runs around). Trust is more like a traditional friendship gauge that raises as you win fights and do quests with a blade in your loadout.

But for most blades, trust just unlocks new tiers of abilities. Unlocking the actual abilities varies with each blade and ability. Off the top of my head, the main storyline blade has unlocked new abilities after I've done x amount of a type of combo, landed x amount of critical hits, walked/run x distance on maps, used her favorite tea 4 times as a buff item, killed x number of a specific enemy, and cooked 10 meals. Another has a requirement to do 3 "compassionate" side activities and of course there's one that requires spending huge amounts of gold to power up. I've also unlocked a side quest specific to one of the random unique blades.

It was my assumption that Blades are just people/animals that have the power to generate a weapon from their soul or something? And Drivers are people who can feed their strength into said weapons, so the two together can get way more power than either one alone?

Having teenaged RPG leads is really cool until you stop being a teenager yourself. Do you remember being seventeen? You're a dumbass at seventeen! I wanna be saved by the guy who's twenty-seven. He's at least payed taxes. He knows how to do shit. He can drive.

I had the impression they were all stereotypical anime scantily clad women. This makes me much more interested.

A good number of the unique ones are. One random one especially so the point of Rob Liefield levels of bad anatomy.

Most are still women but not necessarily scantily clad. Ridiculous outfits to be sure still, but more like figure skating outfit over bikinis. My understanding is that the random, non-story related blades were basically contributions from different artists so the art style and sensibilities can vary a lot.

Again though, the random blades aren't necessarily a big part of the game. It's quite likely some will run through mostly using the main story starter blade, the dark armor blade, and bird thing blades provided by the main quest.

I had the impression they were all stereotypical anime scantily clad women. This makes me much more interested.

A good number of the unique ones are. One random one especially so the point of Rob Liefield levels of bad anatomy.

Most are still women but not necessarily scantily clad. Ridiculous outfits to be sure still, but more like figure skating outfit over bikinis. My understanding is that the random, non-story related blades were basically contributions from different artists so the art style and sensibilities can vary a lot.

Again though, the random blades aren't necessarily a big part of the game. It's quite likely some will run through mostly using the main story starter blade, the dark armor blade, and bird thing blades provided by the main quest.

You get a shit ton of cores and have 9 slots to fill. The random ones also can have quests, heart to hearts and story bits attached to them. Most people will be using some mix of story and random blades, doesn't really make sense not to.